By Michelle Chapman and Tali Arbel
AOL and Yahoo are being sold again, this time to a private equity firm.
Wireless company Verizon will sell Verizon Media, which consists of the once-pioneering tech platforms, to Apollo Global Management in a $5 billion deal.
Verizon said Monday that it will keep a 10% stake in the new company, which will be called Yahoo.
Yahoo at the end of the last century was the face of the internet, preceding the behemoth tech platforms to follow, such as Google and Facebook. And AOL was the portal, bringing almost everyone who logged on during the internet's earliest days.
Verizon spent about $9 billion buying AOL and Yahoo over two years starting in 2015, hoping to jump-start a digital media business that would compete with Google and Facebook. It didn't work — those brands were already fading even then — as Google and Facebook and, increasingly, Amazon dominate the U.S. digital ad market. The year after buying Yahoo, Verizon wrote down the value of the combined operation, called “Oath,” by roughly the value of the $4.5 billion it had spent on Yahoo.
Verizon has been shedding media assets as it refocuses on wireless, spending billions on licensing the airwaves needed for the next generation of faster mobile service, called 5G. It sold blogging site Tumblr in 2019 and HuffPost to BuzzFeed late last year. The digital media sector in recent years has been consolidating as companies seek profitability.
The properties Verizon is selling include Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Mail and the tech blogs Engadget and TechCrunch. Despite its difficulty competing with tech giants for ad dollars, leading to cost cuts and layoffs, Verizon Media’s revenue rose 10% in the most recent quarter from the year before, to $1.9 billion.
Financial firms have played an increasingly prominent role in traditional media as well in recent years, buying up newspaper chains and slashing costs.
Verizon will receive $4.25 billion in cash, preferred interests of $750 million and the minority stake.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year.
Shares of Verizon Communications Inc., based in New York, rose less than 1% Monday.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
Nvidia reported a 56% increase in second-quarter revenue and a 59% rise in net income compared to a year ago.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos claims audiences don't want to watch Netflix movies in theaters, but that seems not to be the case recently.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
Cracker Barrel is sticking with its new logo. For now. But the chain is also apologizing to fans who were angered when the change was announced last week.
